One can’t lead with no moral compass

"We’re not yet at the end of February, but this is already the 30th U.S. mass shooting of the year, and the 19th in a school. "

President Donald Trump gestures to the media as he leaves the White House, Friday, Feb. 16, 2018, in Washington, for a trip to his private Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

The American President is not just commander in chief, he is occasionally called upon to lead the nation in mourning or memorial services.

Ronald Reagan understood this, and played the role to perfection.

When the space shuttle Challenger exploded after its launch in 1986, Reagan gave a televised address to the nation the same day, in which he grieved over the loss of seven astronauts while reaffirming America’s commitment to space exploration.

“The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honoured us by the manner in which they lived their lives,” he concluded. “We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared their journey and waved goodbye and ‘slipped the surly bonds of earth,’ to ‘touch the face of God.’”

Reagan was fortunate to have a speechwriter, Peggy Noonan, who perfectly captured his voice. She was also the author of his famous speech on the cliffs of Normandy above Omaha Beach on the 40th anniversary of the allied landings in 1984. “These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc,” he said of the veterans sitting in front of him. “These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.”

Barack Obama also understood the president’s role in his remarks following the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, in which 20 children and six staff members were killed in 2012.

“May God bless the memory of the victims,” he said, “and, in the words of Scripture, heal the broken hearted and bind up their wounds.”

And stating the obvious, Obama also said: “As a country we have been through this too many times.”

Here they are again, after the latest school shooting in Parkland, Florida, in which 17 teenagers and school officials died at the hands of the all-too-predictable lone gunman. We’re not yet at the end of February, but this is already the 30th U.S. mass shooting of the year, and the 19th in a school. America’s schools are statistically unsafe for America’s children.

As in so many of these massacres, the shooter’s weapon of choice was an AR-15 assault weapon, available on demand in gun shops across the U.S. But of course, according to the mantra of the National Rifle Association, guns don’t kill people, people kill people. The NRA actually uses mass killings as fund raising opportunities, which helps them finance the campaigns of anti-gun control members of Congress and state houses. Then there’s the second amendment of the U.S. constitution and the “right of the people to keep and to bear arms.”

And what has Donald Trump said about the Parkland shootings? Well, he made the requisite statement about “our entire nation, with one heavy heart, is praying for the victims and their families.”

He added that his administration “is working closely with local authorities to investigate the shooting and learn everything we can. We are committed to working with state and local authorities to help secure our schools and tackle the difficult issue of mental health.”

Not a word about guns or assault weapons.

It turned out FBI headquarters in Washington had been tipped off in January about the potential threat posed by this disturbed teenager, Nikolas Cruz, but failed to pass it on to agents in Florida.

For Trump, this became an opportunity to denounce the FBI in the wake of special counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of 13 Russians for meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

“Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter,” Trump tweeted on the weekend. “This is not acceptable. They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion in the Trump campaign. There is no collusion. Get back to basics and make us all proud.”

Trump was trying to tie two completely unrelated events together. As always, it’s all about him. But at the White House Tuesday, he did say on guns that “we must move past clichés and tired debates and focus on evidence-based solutions.”

But it’s just possible that the Valentine’s Day massacre may prove to be a tipping point in banning assault weapons at the federal and state levels, as well as raising the age threshold for obtaining guns.

The difference this time is that the survivors are a community of teenagers articulate and adept on both mainstream and social media. And they’re not alone. School kids and families from across America are joining with them to organize a march on Washington next month. Dozens of Parkland students travelled by bus to Tallahassee Tuesday, and sat shocked in the visitors’ gallery of the legislature while the House voted down a motion to ban assault weapons and bump stocks by a 71-36 margin, while raising the age for owning a gun from 18 to 21.

But it may be these kids won’t take no for an answer.

As 15-year-old Christine Yareda, a freshman at Mary Stoneham Douglas High in Parkland, wrote in an eloquent op-ed in Monday’s New York Times:

“If you have any heart, or care about anyone or anything, you need to be an advocate for change. Don’t let any more children suffer like we have. Don’t continue this cycle. This may not seem relevant to you. But next time it could be your family, your friends, your neighbours. Next time it could be you.”

Exactly right.

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Author

L. Ian MacDonald is editor of Policy, the bi-monthly magazine of Canadian politics and public policy. He is the author of six books. He served as chief speechwriter to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney from 1985-88, and later as head of the public affairs division of the Canadian Embassy in Washington from 1992-94.